What is Sherlock?
Sherlock hunts down social media accounts by username across 400+ social networks. You run it from the command line with one or more usernames, and accounts found are stored in an individual text file named after each username.
A {?} placeholder in a username checks similar variants, replacing it with an underscore, hyphen or period. Options let you limit the search to specific sites, route requests through a proxy, include NSFW sites, set a request timeout, choose whether sites where the username was not found are printed, and export results as CSV or XLSX. The tool is released under the MIT license by the Sherlock Project, and its creator is Siddharth Dushantha.
The documented install routes are pipx (pip or uv can be used instead), a Docker image, and dnf. Community-maintained packages exist for Debian, Ubuntu, Homebrew, Kali and BlackArch, but these are not directly supported or maintained by the Sherlock Project.
Key capabilities
- Username lookups across 400+ social networks
- Search for one user or several users in a single run
- Per-username text file of accounts found
- CSV and XLSX export
- Site filter and proxy support
- Install through pipx, Docker or dnf
Where Sherlock fits
- Username search One command checks a username against more than 400 social networks.
- Multiple usernames Several usernames can be passed in one command, for example sherlock user1 user2 user3.
- Result files Accounts found are stored in a text file named after the username, and CSV and XLSX output are also available.
- Site targeting The --site option limits a run to the listed sites, and it can be repeated to name more than one site.
- Proxy support The --proxy option sends requests over a proxy such as a socks5 address.
- Timeouts and filters A timeout for each request can be set, and the --nsfw option adds NSFW sites from the default list.
- Installation The pipx install command installs the package, pip or uv can replace pipx, and a Docker image is also available.
Install
pipx install sherlock-projectReviews of Sherlock
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